This episode explores how high performance and constant productivity can become a way of avoiding yourself. When you stay busy, overwork, and keep pushing forward, it can feel like progress, but sometimes that pace is simply covering up deeper questions about whether your work truly fits you.
This conversation invites you to pause and reflect on what might really be driving that intensity, and how slowing down and facing what you’ve been avoiding can help you reconnect with yourself and the work you truly want.
Hello and welcome back. Do you pride yourself on getting things done? On being the reliable one, the productive one, the person who always delivers?
If being busy makes you feel capable, valued or even safe then this episode is for you.
Most careers begin in a fairly standard way with first jobs, learning the rules of the office and figuring out how to perform well.
But somewhere along the line your personal performance changed, you ramped up the productivity and eventually hit a high-intensity state that became your new normal.
That state can be powerful. But it can also become a way to avoid yourself.
Today, we are exploring how easy it is to fall into the trap of doing more and achieving more. And how that constant motion is avoidance, disconnecting you from what you really think and feel about your work and life.
The full transcript is available at theactionwithin.com/4.
When Performance Becomes the Escape
I remember being in this state.
Constantly doing and justifying. Always moving to avoid myself and question what was really going on.
As with me, you didn’t go from starting out to overdrive overnight. It’s a slow creep.
Like a project that grew arms and legs and, of course, you put your hand up to take on more. More work, more people, more responsibility. It builds over years.
I get it. It feels good to move through intense workloads and achieve the results expected of you. There is satisfaction in that.
But at what cost?
At what point did stop putting yourself first? When did your employer’s needs become more important than your own?
From what I have seen, the shift often begins in the moment you feel you have to try harder to make it work.
The desire to prove you can deliver places a heavy weight on your shoulders. In many cases, that expectation is self-imposed. But it feels real.
Proving becomes the goal:
- I’m right where I should be
- I’m capable of taking up this space
- I’m the person they think I am
And those thoughts drive you beyond what is reasonable.
There’s a Reason You Keep Going
You have your reasons for losing yourself.
Facing them is tough. It’s not an easy conversation to have, but it may be the one that frees you from a burnout state that will eventually catch up with you.
What is motivating your performance?
What triggers your incredible drive to override what you know feels right, in favour of what you think is required?
I was scared to admit I didn’t like what I was doing, because I had no idea what I would do instead. It felt easier to keep going than to consider I am in the wrong line of work.
So I overworked to stay distracted. I used performance to numb what I didn’t want to feel.
And what’s surprising is that I found myself in burnout twice. The same pattern, nine years apart.
What unsettled me the most the second time was that I didn’t see it coming.
I was so deep in delivering, head down, just getting through it, that by the time I finally paused and looked up, it was too late.
The interesting part is this: between those burnouts, one thing hadn’t changed.
I was still working in a sector that I was never fully at ease in. I had learned lessons and made adjustments. But I hadn’t addressed the core issue.
I was so focussed on delivering that I had stopped seeing and listening to myself.
My workload became my identity. It was how I measured my value.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Stepping Back Before You Burn Out
It’s actually very common to avoid yourself by staying productive.
There are a few terms for it. I quite like toxic productivity because it calls into question whether the effort is good for you.
Now I don’t want you to burn out to the point where you have to step away completely just to recover. There are exits you can take long before it gets to that stage.
Knowledge, self-awareness and self-kindness are powerful tools here.
You being here right now is already building your knowledge and awareness.
The next step is kindness.
This means taking the time to understand your behaviour, by questioning the pace you’ve been operating at, and slowing things down enough to give yourself space to think.
To help you explore this, here are few questions that can help you understand what you’ve been avoiding for so long.
Ask yourself:
How do I really feel about the work I do?
Think about your emotions, thoughts and the feelings that come up when you consider your day-to-day.
What am I avoiding by keeping myself constantly busy and overworking?
Be honest here and allow the uncomfortable truths to surface.
Who benefits from me operating in this constant high-intensity state?
When you reflect on the people around you, it often becomes clear who gains from this and who loses.
Challenge your answers, don’t settle for first responses.
Sit with what you uncover. Consider what this means for you.
What Does Your Busy Hide?
Socrates once said “Beware the barrenness of a busy life”. That line has never felt more true than when you find yourself living that exact life.
Take your time with this. Reflect on what comes up and notice how it begins to shift the way you see yourself, your work and your days.